A deeply personal tribute to my childhood friend Tracy on what would have been his 62nd birthday, reflecting on our shared roots in Gilchrist, Texas—a town erased by Hurricane Ike—and the indelible imprints left on our hearts by those we love. This remembrance honors friendship, loss, and the echoes of childhood that never fade.
My childhood at the beach is a constant muse for poetry and a guide for how to live, an everlasting gift from my parents, who chose to leave suburbia for a life on the coast that would their children to be children and their lives to authentic and grounded in nature.
This rough little poem came spilling out of me as I thought of those halcyon sand-ridden childhood days and so many memories flooded in. Everything seemed so safe, so permanent, so lively-lovely in our tiny town of 600, Gilchrist, Texas.
